


The Girl in the Sword

by vamprav



Category: Harry Potter - J. K. Rowling
Genre: Alternate Universe - Canon Divergence, Basilisks, F/M, Gen, Harry Potter Has Issues, Harry Potter is Not a Horcrux, M/M, Not Canon Compliant - Harry Potter and the Chamber of Secrets, OFC is So Done, Parseltongue, Past Character Death, Podfic Welcome, Sentient Swords, Sword of Gryffindor, anymore
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-05-20
Updated: 2020-05-20
Packaged: 2021-03-02 22:41:25
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 10,183
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/24284536
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/vamprav/pseuds/vamprav
Summary: Belinda Slytherin had been asleep for a long, long time, spending the centuries in the blade her betrothed had wielded until his dying day. Then she woke to a twelve year old fighting a basilisk, a horcrux trying to kill a little girl, and a school in shambles.Belinda was not pleased.
Relationships: Draco Malfoy/Harry Potter, Original Female Character/Original Male Character, pre-slash - Relationship
Comments: 19
Kudos: 232
Collections: Fave Stories of Queixo, Minions' writings





	The Girl in the Sword

Part 1

Belinda was asleep. She’d been asleep for a while now, there honestly wasn’t much to do as a sword sitting on a shelf and the boredom had caught up to her after a while. It was better to sleep, to remain dormant inside her bladed body rather than go insane from the lack of stimuli.

She only really stirred long enough to give her consent to whomever was wielding her after so long without any real conversation. What she really wanted was to get out of the sword and actually have a mortal form again but that wasn’t going to be happening any time soon so she would settle for being used for justice when needed and being retired to a shelf when not.

“My lady.” The Sorting Hat, what had Lord Gryffindor named him, she always forgot, said from her left. “Might I bother you to come help a young student of ours?”

Belinda grumbled an answer that might have been taken for a yes and did the soul equivalent of turning over so she could get more comfortable. Children were important and should be protected and while she had never had any of her own she wished that she had. She’d enjoyed taking new additions to her father’s house under her wing, showing them around the castle and tutoring them in classes, she had especially enjoyed working with those born of mundane blood, they were always so awed and excited by everything.

No matter, if the boy was old enough to wield a blade he was old enough not to need her help. She would let him use her edge to defend himself but she didn’t have to wake up for tha-

There was blood on her hilt.

There was blood on her hilt, seeping into the leather of her grip and Belinda was suddenly fully awake for the first time in decades. It was Gryffindor blood, so familiar that she couldn’t ignore the call to action.

There was someone of Gryffindor blood holding her hilt, his blood being absorbed by the leather so that he wouldn’t lose his grip. He felt young, no older than twelve but his magic was more powerful than most wizards’ would be at seventeen.

And he was scared, scared beyond fear. It was a desperate terror that she could feel in the white knuckled grip he had around her hilt.

Belinda adjusted herself, carefully lightning herself enough that he would be able to use her better. Then she looked outward at what had him so terrified and, oh, that was bad. Belinda had told her father that letting Drake hatch out a basilisk was a fantastically bad idea but her brother had always had a tongue coated in far more silver than her own.

And was that a Horcrux? Belinda had thought her father had destroyed all of the books pertaining to that particular brand of Black Magick.

Fawkes was flying away from where he had been diving at the basilisk’s eyes and the horcrux screamed in fury. The eyes might not have been a threat anymore but a basilisk’s sense of smell was far more acute than most people thought and it was already slithering towards the boy that was holding Belinda.

The boy turned to run, the sensible decision and Belinda approved of his quick thinking. He must have rushed ahead of the teachers in an attempt to save the ginger haired girl lying on the ground, probably his sister, Loenhard’s brother had always had such gorgeous copper hair. Now they could get back to them and the boy could hand her over to said teachers and they could deal with the basilisk that was following them.

Then, the world decided to flip itself over one axis when the boy holding her tripped over his own feet and hissed in pain. And that wasn’t just any hiss either, Belinda would recognize the sibilant speech of a Parselmouth anywhere. Her father had been one, her mother had been one, her brother had been one, and she too had the gift of Parseltongue.

Belinda looked at the boy for the first time, rather than just sensing him through her hilt. He looked a lot like her, green eyes and black hair, cheekbones that would sharpen with time. But his hair was the same unruly mess that Leonhart’s had been, a curse he and his siblings had inherited from their mother and his jawline looked like it would be the same shape when he grew.

He had Gryffindor blood but he looked like Belinda, he had her eyes, eyes that she’d gotten from her father and her father’s mother and her mother before her and all the way down the line to the first Slytherin who had been gifted with the serpent’s tongue. She knew that her niece's line had eventually ran to squibs but all magic came from magic and all magic lost would eventually return.

This boy, this twelve year old frightened boy, was the intersection of two of the Founder’s lines and he looked like he could have been her and Leonhart’s son. It had been centuries since she had interacted with another soul but if this wasn’t a wake up call she didn’t know what was.

“Get up.” She spoke directly into his head, not wasting any time or energy in manifestation, she was out of practice and trying to do it on the fly might result in… an accident.

“What?” The boy hissed back but he was already scrambling to his feet to bolt. “Who are you? Where are you? You need to get out of here.”

If Belinda wasn’t a sword at the moment she would have rolled her eyes at that, typical Gryffindor, trying to get everyone out of danger except for himself. At least Leonhart’s niece had been half way sensible but even she had fallen prey to the hero complex.

“My name is Belinda, I’m the sword, do you want any help with this?” Belinda told him.

“Um, yes.” Harry was almost breathless.

“Can I borrow your body for half a minute? I’ll give it right back.”

There was a second of silence as the boy visibly thought it over, she couldn’t really blame him given the circumstances. Soul Blades and Horcruxes were vastly different beasts but they could be similar in some aspects, the main one being the human soul trapped inside. Though Belinda was a whole soul, not a mangled half soul slowly atrophying energy like a sieve full of water.

The basilisk made a particularly threatening hissing noise behind them and the boy visibly decided that now was not the time to question the person trying to get him out of the giant snake’s striking range. “Yes.”

“Hold on, it’s been a while since I’ve done this.” Belinda said.

It had been awhile since she’d shared a body with someone, that last time it had been one of Leonhart’s great grand nieces on the other end of the hilt and they’d been fighting bandits. She, at least, had had some semblance of basic combat training and had been in her early twenties.

Belinda was as careful as she could be as she funneled herself through her hilt and into the boy’s body. There was a brief stutter of his legs and then she was turning on the ball of one foot to face the basilisk, his mind cradled gently against her own. He could see what was happening and he’d be able to feel most of it, to give input on her actions but Harry, that was his name, written clearly across his mind, wasn’t a trained fighter.

Belinda may have been a woman but her father had always encouraged her to learn to fight, just like the men in her family. In his opinion, since those without magical blood wouldn’t care whether the person they were burning was a man or a woman, she should be able to defend herself as well as her brother could.

In fact, she’d been in an exhibition duel with Leonhart when-

She couldn’t think about that right now, she had a basilisk to worry about and couldn’t afford to be distracted. It was heading right for them at a decent clip.

Basilisks were large, they kept growing throughout their lives, never truly peaking even if their growth slowed after a few years. It meant they could eat large prey to slate their appetite and their slower metabolism - fascinating word that, it was new, she hadn’t known it the last time she was awake - meant they didn’t need to eat as often as a warm blooded animal that size. They could feed off of the ambient magic of a ley line, too, a fact Belinda cursed viemently because if that wasn’t the case the damn snake would have died centuries ago.

But that size did come with several distinct disadvantages for the snake which automatically became advantages for Belinda and Harry. For one, while the snake was fast, she wasn’t as fast as she’d been when she’d hatched. For another, since she didn’t grow new bones when she shed and instead just increased the size of her existing skeleton, she was far less dexterous and flexible than she had been when she was younger.

The third advantage, the advantage Fawkes had given them, was the fact that the serpent was lacking eyes. It wouldn’t have affected either of them, Parselmouths were immune to the gaze of a basilisk, but it also meant that the snake had to rely on her other senses to hunt them.

Sasha, the basilisk, had never had to worry about food or hunting, Drake doted on her like she was his own child, spoiled her rotten. In the centuries since his death Sasha had been locked in a cold, wet chamber under the black lake and had probably been feeding off of the ley line almost exclusively.

In other words, Sasha had no bloody clue how to hunt. A fact that would have been disastrous for her if she’d ever gotten out of the chamber but was a gift from the gods at the moment.

The basilisk rushed at them, holding nothing back. Harry screamed in terror, Belinda took a deep breathe, and pivoted out of the way. She skipped a few steps in rapid succession and turned back to thrust her blade forward, directly into the bloody socket that was all that was left of Sasha’s left eye.

She felt herself scrape bone and she’d forgotten how disconcerting it was to be in two bodies at once. She didn’t like it, she’d never liked it, and this time hadn’t changed her opinion of it.

There was a point on the inside of the skull, on the inside of every skull, where the eye connected itself to the brain. It was generally a rather small target, given the size of most skulls but basilisks were huge and had a larger than average gap besides because of the magic that needed to be channeled to the eyes in order for their death stare to work.

Her point scraped against the socket as the snake’s momentum took Harry’s body off their feet and found purchase. With great effort and a touch of magic she sank her point deep into the beast’s brain, feeling it begin to die around her almost as soon as she did.

The basilisk stopped moving once they were meters away from when Belinda had driven the point of her sword into the snake’s eye. Harry was freaking out, Harry was freaking out quite a lot from where he was clinging to her mind with his own.

Belinda took stock of her injuries, other than the mild scrape on Harry’s palm which had already healed over, the only thing that hurt was his arm and his back. The arm just felt like she’d wrenched it a bit and Harry’s back just felt like he’d bruised it when they’d been swept off their feet.

Belinda pulled herself free of the snake’s brain and turned back towards the Horcrux that was now staring at her in a mix of horror and mild awe. He was young, her age, and that made her heart ache because what could have happened to turn him down this path so young. People protected children now, or at least they were supposed to, so why had this boy decided that splitting his soul in half was a brilliant idea?

“ _ What is your name? _ ” Belinda’s Parseltongue was smooth and clear, sounding like music as it passed her lips. 

There was something wrong with the small scar sitting on Harry’s brow, she’d noticed it when she’d done her check but she needed time to analyse it properly. That meant she needed time to pick the… knot of magic apart, so distract the psychotic sixteen year old it was.

“ _ You aren’t Potter. _ ” The Horcrux watched her with curious eyes as she made her way to the Basilisk’s mouth and held her blade against one of the fangs. “ _ Who are you? _ ”

Goblin steel could absorb a lot of things and Sasha had already donated to the Gryffindor sword but she’d been barely ten feet long when that had happened. The venom would be far more potent now that she was older and Belinda was not turning her nose up at that opportunity.

“ _ It’s rude to answer a question with a question. _ ” She turned to face him once more. “ _ But given that manners are not something that many concern themselves with these days I will excuse the slight. My name is Belinda Slytherin, daughter of Salazar Slytherin, and the spirit of the Gryffindor sword. _ ”

She caught the edge of what it was, the darkness in Harry’s scar, held there by a mother’s desperation, a mother’s love. It wasn’t anything substantial, barely even a sliver of something that had once been powerful but it was still strong enough to fight back against the imprint of Harry’s mother’s magic.

It was a Horcrux, like the one in front of her, and from the size, whoever had made it was the worst idiot she’d ever run across. Splitting your soul was a supremely stupid idea, it cut your magical power in half for one and started to turn you into a vampire that fed off of magic. Splitting your soul multiple times and as many times as this felt like…

Belinda didn’t even want to know the state of the man who had decided this was a good idea. Because it was a man who had done this, she could feel that much from the soul shard even if everything else about it was a complete mess.

The Horcrux in front of her laughed. “ _ Oh, if those precious little lions only knew what their idol had done. That he had enslaved his rival’s daughter. _ ”

“ _ Quite _ .” Harry’s voice was bone dry as Belinda spoke.

She grabbed the soul shard with her magic and ripped it to shreds with a thought. She wouldn’t have been able to do that before but Belinda had been a sword for centuries, nothing but a soul and magic tied to a blade. Her power was tied up in death and protection, in the very metal that was her body. And the blade she was tied to had basilisk venom running through its steel.

Belinda was face to face with the Horcrux now and was holding her sword in a reverse grip. He just sneered down at her as she looked back up at him with cool eyes. There was a book lying on the ground by her right foot and she could practically taste the magic trailing from it to the Horcrux.

“You know.” Belinda switched back to english as she studied the Horcrux’s face. “I never understood why people were so terrified of death. It’s hardly the worst thing that’s happened to me.”

Then, she sank her blade through the diary and into the stone floor beneath.

Part 2

The Horcrux screamed, the book and the manifestation he’d managed to gather the energy to form. Belinda pulled herself free of the book as ink gushed out around her blade like blood from an artery. The bottom third of her blade was covered in black ink that smelled like rotten daisies and felt like feted meat against her length.

Belinda held back the urge to vomit, Harry didn’t need that on top of the magical surge that was going to be coming as soon as she left his body. The Horcrux in his head had been funneling magic out of him and towards the person who had created it, which was probably why Harry was so strong magic wise.

A wound appeared in the manifestation’s heart as it crumbled to its knees. It looked up at her with hate clear in its eyes and she held its gaze with her own until it began to crumble around the edges.

Then Belinda turned on Harry’s heel to cast her gaze around the chamber, looking for any other threats. She didn’t see or sense any and when the Horcrux’s pressance finally vanished she let go of her control on Harry’s body so that she could flow back into her blade.

Harry didn’t drop her, which was reassuring but he did sit down too fast to really be intentional. Belinda quickly twisted her power up into a semblance of her former body and pushed it out of her vessel.

Belinda formed her manifestation a few feet away from Harry and his sister, no, friend, she’d managed to pick up the connection as she left his body. She took stock of the manifestation with a calculated gaze.

She’d put herself in the simple green dress she’d planned to wear to her wedding, the cuffs were embroidered with golden snakes and the leather belt around her waist had a dagger hanging from it, the first courting gift Leonhart had given her. Her feet were bare but she had a circlet of silver sitting amongst her wavy curls.

She’d died in her fighting tunic but there was really no point in showing up dressed like she was about to go into battle when the battle was already over. Besides she liked her dress, her mother had made it for her.

“Alright, now that that’s over with, I believe we should go find the headmaster.” Belinda said.

Harry was staring at her in clear shock as she came over to examine the Horcrux’s vessel more closely. The red headed girl was beginning to stir as the Horcrux’s grip on her soul began to vanish into thin air. If she was lucky there wouldn’t be any permanent damage to her magic or mind, a decent healer would help with that.

“Why are you down here by yourself? You should have brought a teacher with you at the very least, if not those magical sheriffs I heard they were starting to use the last time I was awake.” Belinda scolded gently.

“There are magical police?” Harry asked.

Belinda blinked at him. “Are you mundane raised?”

“Um…” Harry looked lost as he stared up at her with a pleading look in his eyes.

Belinda sighed and pinched the bridge of her nose. She hated when she did that, it made her feel like her father when she did. Then again, trying to teach twelve small children how not to kill themselves with potions ingredients or the pointy end of a sword was the most irritating thing in the world so she couldn’t really blame him for that particular tick.

“Muggle? I think that’s the word that they use now. Were you muggle raised?” Belinda asked.

“Oh, yes?”

“That sounded like a question.”

“Yes.” Harry nodded, looking more determined.

Belinda smiled at him, he was a bit petite for his age and the mundane upbringing would explain that. Magic burned a lot of calories as it built up the core and most mundane born or raised wizards and witches didn’t get enough to eat because their families didn’t know they needed more or couldn’t afford to give them more.

“Alright then, when you choose your electives for next year, they do still have electives, right?” She waited for Harry to nod before continuing. “When that happens choose Magical Studies as one of them-”

She stopped because Harry was shaking his head at her and she cocked her head to indicate he should elaborate on the denial. He hesitated for a second as his eyes flickered over her face.

“There isn’t an elective called Magical Studies.” It all came out in a rush.

Belinda blinked and felt her face go flat. “Excuse me.”

Then the girl lying on the floor stirred and began to sit up. She rubbed at her head and winced as a couple of bones in her spine popped.

“Ow, my head.” Her eyes went wide as they landed on Harry. “Harry! You need to run! Get out of here! It’s Tom, he’s the Heir!”

“Ginny!” Harry interrupted her rambling. “Ginny, he’s gone!”

“Heir?” Belinda asked.

“Heir of Slytherin, the only one who can open the Chamber of Secrets.” Harry’s voice was absent minded as he snatched the diary off the floor.

Belinda rolled her eyes. “Anyone with parseltongue could open the Chamber, it was keyed that way so that if the church ever managed to break the wards we’d be safe. Besides, there was a secondary password in case my family wasn’t around which was a fantastic idea once Father left because he couldn’t look Godric in the eye.”

Ginny turned to look at her and blinked in confusion. Harry was looking at her in horrified realization. She watched as dots connected for the both of them, as Ginny’s hands came up to her mouth and fury writ itself clear across Harry’s face.

“How did you die?” Ginny asked and then squeaked, clearly not having meant to say that out loud.

Belinda smiled gently at her. “Someone invented the Imperious curse.”

It had been a clear sunny day and the new students were filing into the courtyard for their first sword lesson. Belinda had been in her sparing tunic and breeches, talking to Bradley… she didn’t remember his last name, barely remembered his first.

He was a mundane born wizard a year older than her and was of “noble blood,'' a bit like Leonhart was but much more recent. He was the only son of some minor lord whose wife had died a few years after his birth. Instead of burning his only child at the stake like any good Cristian would when he discovered that his son had magic he sent him to Hogwarts.

Bradley had just gotten back from a visit to his family, apparently his father had taken a new wife. Belinda had gushed a bit about that and let slip about her bonding ceremony coming up. His face had shut down and she hadn’t known why, not right then at least.

Her father had come in and gestured for her to come forward. The first day of Defense was always a demonstration before he went into a general overview of the class and what he expected from them.

This time around she and Leonhart were giving the demonstration because he’d just received his father’s sword as a coming of age and Father always wanted to demonstrate what a goblin forged weapon could do in the right hands, even if the blade had never absorbed a soul to give it sentience. Soul Swords were rare and empty practically unheard of so it was a treat for the young magic users to see one in action.

Belinda and Leonhart had spared before, they did it all the time in fact and they knew each other enough that fighting with live steel wasn’t going to get either of them killed.

Belinda had smiled at Leonhart from across the sparing circle, staring into his clear blue eyes as they bowed to one another. Her own sword was smaller than Leonhart’s, lighter and with less embellishments on the hilt, she honestly had no idea how he held the thing, what with the lack of leather grip.

They started the spar off slow, speeding up as time went on, showing off more and more of what they could do to the cheers of the gathered students…

And then something had gone wrong.

There was a cry from Bradley, a wand raised as he shouted a spell she’d never heard before. “IMPERIO!”

The spell had hit Leonhart square in the back and everything happened all at once. Father had turned to yell at Bradley for interfering with the match, Belinda’s arm dropped as she cried out in horror at the thought of an unknown spell hitting her betrothed, and Leonhart’s eyes glazed over like ice creeping across a lake.

Then, there had been a sword buried in Belinda’s chest and Leonhart’s eyes were much, much closer than they had been meer seconds earlier. They had cleared slowly, horror building as Belinda had coughed around the blade and everything faded to black.

Belinda shook off the memory with some effort. Ginny looked even more horrified than before while Harry just looked confused. She almost rolled her eyes at how lacking orientation was getting, true it had been rather hit or miss for the first couple of years but after that her father and the founders had mostly figured out where the gaps in knowledge were and how to paper over them.

“Now, we should leave, I need to speak with your professors about the blatant lack of concern for their students.” Belinda began moving her manifestation towards the entrance of the Chamber.

Harry and Ginny helped each other to their feet and hurried to catch up to her manifestation. Harry settled on her manifestation’s left side and Ginny on its right, they were close enough to her manifestation that if it were solid they’d be bumping into it. That made sense, they’d just gone through something traumatic and while Belinda hadn’t been an adult when she died, she was the closest thing to an authority figure there.

Ginny looked scared and there was a vague blankness to her expression that set off warning bells in Belinda’s head. She’d seen that blankness before, on people who’d gone through incredible trauma and didn’t know how to cope with it in a healthy way. They tended to turn to alcohol or drugs or fixate on a certain ideal to the exclusion of all else. If this wasn’t nipped in the bud early then the Horcrux would do more than hurt Ginny, he would completely ruin her.

Belinda was beginning to realize that she couldn’t trust the adults as Hogwarts to be responsible or practical. How could she when there were two children in her care that should have been helped the instant an issue came up? How had the Horcrux gone so long without detection? How had Harry managed to sneak down into the Chamber? How had Ginny for that matter?

Harry on the other hand looked angry, like his world view had shifted and he didn’t quite know how to react. He was entitled to it, Belinda was going to leave it alone for now, maybe revisit it if it started to fester and rot. There was nothing wrong with anger but blind hatred was another story.

There was another red headed child in the corridor leading to the entrance of the tunnels, and really, when was the last time someone had cleaned up down here, half of the corridors were a bit flooded and most of them were covered in rat skeletons. Belinda hated rats, mice were fine, mice were cute and shy and stayed out of the way, rats were vicious bastards that could take down a cat if they were determined enough. It honestly didn’t help that one of Belinda’s favorite snakes had run afoul of the damn things when she was eight.

And it looked like a section of the ceiling had collapsed which was going to take some repair work. Honestly, why hadn’t someone renewed the reinforcement spells, they weren’t that hard to cast.

“Ron!” Ginny called out but didn’t rush forward to meet him.

There was a man standing next to Ron, tall and blonde, wearing clothes far more expensive than what could be reasonably bought on a teacher’s salary and gaudy in a way that read like vanity. His smile was brilliant but his eyes were vacant in a hungry way that made Belinda’s skin itch.

“Ginny!” Ron clambered over the few remaining boulders to sweep his sister up into a hug.

“Who are you?” Belinda asked the blonde man.

“I have no idea.” The amount of cheer in his voice was just unsettling.

Belinda turned to look at Harry. He had a vaguely guilty look on his face but in that pleased way that meant he felt guilty about enjoying what had happened and not the event itself.

“Gilderoy Lockheart. He’s Defence Against the Dark Arts professor but he’s not really qualified for the position. The only spell he’s really good at is Obliviate. He tried to use it on Ron but Ron’s wand is broken and the spell backfired.” Harry explained.

“Well, he got what he deserved. Moving on, we should really get upstairs before your teachers start panicking.” Belinda gestured the children and idiot back through the corridor and towards the entrance.

“Who’s she?” Ron asked.

“Her name’s Belinda, she’s the spirit of the Gryffindor Sword.” Ginny explained.

Belinda noted the absence of her last name and pursed her lips. The implications of that little tidbit weren’t all that pretty, especially given the tone with which Ginny had originally spoken the word “heir” and the fact that the school’s escape bunker was being called the “Chamber of Secrets”.

She knew that time could distort history quite a lot, she’d seen it, lived through it, laughed at some of the mistakes people made but she’d never seen it go this far before. The whole “Chamber of Secrets” debacle plus the Horcrux was beginning to taste like villainization. Sure, she’d seen the politics between the houses of serpent and lion grow tense over the years but nothing more than that, nothing to the extent the Horcrux implied.

Belinda had been asleep for too damn long.

Part 3

Getting out of the tunnel was simple enough, though why Harry hadn’t the sense to ask for stairs the first time round Belinda would never know. Finding the Headmaster’s office was even easier, given that Fawkes was with them and Belinda had been sleeping on the shelves under the portraits for a while.

When they reached the statue that marked the entrance Belinda realized that the Headmaster’s office had been moved from the room near the dining hall into one of the classrooms that had been set aside for demonstrations of ritual magic. How that little menoiver had been accomplished she didn’t know and didn’t care and the fact that the headmaster had a password for his door was infuriating.

The statue took one look at her expression and the children trailing her before quickly moving aside to reveal the steps up to the office. Most of the stone work knew her, she’d helped put down the spell work that animated them and that particular statue had gotten the wrong side of her wand a few times when Leonhart decided it would be a brilliant idea to test out some theories on magic without anyone to make sure he didn’t kill himself.

Belinda made her way up the steps and flung the inner door open. Silence fell over the room in a sheet as she stopped her way in, Ginny and Harry trailing her like ducklings with Ron trying to keep Lockheart quiet just behind them.

She strode over to the headmaster’s desk and glared down at the old man sitting in the chair. “Would you care to explain why there was a gods be damned Horcrux in my father’s school?”

Harry tossed the diary onto the desk in an excellent demonstration of dramatic flare and the room erupted into a cacophony of voices. Two red headed adults rushed forward, sobbing as they swept Ginny up into their arms. A stern faced woman in her late fifties turned to start scolding Harry and Ron. Lockheart began to babble about how this was all very well and good but could someone please tell him who he was and the portraits on the wall began crying out in outrage.

“SILENCE!” Belinda roared.

The shout reverberated throughout the room, shaking the glass of the windows and rattling the various trinkets on their shelves. Everyone shut up except for the woman who had to be Ginny’s mother but Belinda wouldn’t fault her for that.

“Good, now if you would all be quiet for five minutes I need the Headmaster to explain how the wards got so corroded that they wouldn’t alert someone to the fact that a Black artifact of a Horcrux’s power had entered the castle grounds, let alone allowing it in the first place.” Belinda glared at the old man behind the desk who just smiled at her, eyes twinkling.

Belinda’s eyebrow twitched as he opened his mouth, she could already tell that she wasn’t going to like the answer to that question.

“My dear girl,” yup, she wasn’t going to like this at all, “the wards around Hogwarts are very complex. It is quite possible that when the war wards were taken down that there was a mistake that comprised the-”

“Excuse me.” Belinda cut him off before any more bullshit could come out. “But if the ward to prevent the entrance of Black artifacts into the school was taken down then you have larger problems with the warding matrix than that because those were laid down before anything else and if you took that down then there aren’t any wards left to protect the school. Those wards, along with the anti mundane ward and the ward Helga put down to keep the foundations stable, was what everything else was built off of.”

There was a long stretch of silence as Belinda watched the twinkle fade from the Headmaster’s eye. Most of the portraits shuffled nervously in their frames, while the few that had been around the last time she was awake smirked.

“May I ask who you are, Miss?” The headmaster asked.

“Belinda, spirit of Gryffindor’s sword and I would like to know why one of my father’s descendants went down into the “Chamber of Secrets” by himself to save his friend from a basilisk, why there is a Horcrux in my father’s school, and why you hired someone so incompitent that they managed to obliviate themselves because they didn’t reallise that trying to cast magic with a broken wand was a supremely stupid idea.” Belinda watched the headmaster with narrowed eyes.

“Basilisk?” Ginny’s mother sounded scandalized.

“Did you not know what was in the chamber?” Belinda sighed when all she got was blank stares and debated just giving up beating sense into the lot of them because from the looks of things that was going to take a long time. “Drake Slytherin convinced Salazar Slytherin to let him hatch a basilisk, how I have no idea, but it happened and he put her in the Chamber when she got too big for him to keep up here. You should probably check for eggs, just in case she laid any that were fertile.”

“Drake? That’s not very…” Harry trailed off.

“Well, his full name was Dracomire but that’s a bit of a nightmare so we just called him Drake.” She said.

Ginny giggled.

“So you were in Hogwarts when all the Founders were at Hogwarts?” The stern faced woman asked.

“Yeah, why’d Slytherin leave? No one’s been able to figure that out.” Pne of the portraits asked.

Belinda cocked her eyebrow at him. “What are the leading theories?”

“Theory.” Harry told her. “The only one I’ve heard is they got into a fight over allowing muggleborns into the school and then Salazar Slytherin left.”

Belinda looked at everyone else to see if there was any other theory forthcoming. When there wasn’t she buried her head in her hands and tried not to scream. How was there so much lost in the sands of time?

“No, that isn’t what happened.” Belinda said.

“But Slytherin hated muggleborns.” Ron sounded like his entire world view was about to fall down around his ears.

“No, he didn’t, none of them did. He left because his daughter died in a duel gone wrong. Leonhart Gryffindor was involved, it happened shortly before I wound up filling the soul slot in the blade.” Belinda turned to Harry. “Now, why were you down in the Chamber by yourself with only a moronic teacher and your friend while you tried to rescue a Horcrux victim?”

“Um.” Harry looked down at his feet and scuffed his foot. “We found Lockheart trying to flee the school and we knew no one else was going to listen to us so we just took him with us.”

“Oh, and how did you know that no one was going to listen to you?” Belinda asked.

“Because when we told Professor Mcgonagall that someone was trying to steal the stone last year she didn’t listen to us.” The words came out in a rush, like they’d been sitting just behind Harry’s teeth this entire time.

“And where was the headmaster?” Belinda asked.

“At the Ministry.”

“And what was the stone?”

“The Philosopher’s Stone, the kind that makes the elixir of life.”

“Right.” Belinda turned her gaze back on Dumbledore, pinning him to his seat like a butterfly in a box. “You decided that it would be a brilliant idea to keep an artifact like that in a school full of children? What is wrong with you? What if one of them had found it?”

“There were defences set up and they were told not to-” Dumbledore stopped talking when Belinda laughed in his face.

“Are you being serious? Is he being serious?” She looked at the stern faced woman, at Harry, and at the cluster of red heads, none of them were laughing along with her. “Oh, dear gods he is. Did it never occur to you that telling teenagers not to do something was the fastest way to get them to do it?”

A flash of surprise darted across Dumbledore’s face almost faster than Belinda could catch but she did. He knew, oh he had known and he’d done it anyway. Belinda felt something deep inside her steel go ice cold as rage crystalized from boiling anger to diamond hard fury.

“Defenses.” Belinda drawled, barely managing to keep the parseltongue hiss out of her voice, reverting to her first language would not help with anything right now. “What kind of defenses?”

She was hoping that they were non lethal because if they were she was going to lose every single shit she still had left after the basilisk, the Horcrux, and the bumbling who had, apparently, been in charge of teaching the children how to defend themselves.

“Um.” Ron sounded vaguely terrified as he spoke up. “There was a three headed dog that fell asleep when you played music as the first obstacle.”

Belinda glanced at him, caught sight of the look on his mother’s face, and stepped back to watch her explode. Things were so much more entertaining when she could get the people around her to do half the work. Harry appeared to have a similar idea as her.

“And devil snare, that one nearly strangled us.” He added before taking cover behind Belinda’s manifestation.

Belinda suppressed a grin as she looked down at the sneaky little lion holding her sword. It looked like he’d gotten more of her line’s talents than she’d thought, watching a plan fall into place was a glorious thing but not as glorious as an opportunity well leveraged.

“ALBUS DUMBLEDORE!” The red haired woman - and Belinda really did need to find out everyone’s names - shrieked at the top of her lungs.

Belinda took a step back to let her have her moment of blind maternal fury. Instead of watching the spectacle, which she desperately wanted to do she turned to the red headed man and smiled.

“Next time your daughter comes across something that talks back I’d advise checking it for spells. There are harmless artifacts with sentience attached and things like me who have souls but there are things out there that are harmful. I’d also recommend taking her to a healer, being around that much Black Magick for as long as I think she was… well, that would be a problem for most adult magic users, let alone a child barely past her first maturity.” Belinda kept her voice gentle in contrast to the other woman, who clearly had harpy blood somewhere in her line.

“I didn’t tell them I had it.” Ginny sounded guilty. “There was a lot going on and by the time it slowed down I…”

“It already had its claws in you.” Belinda nodded in understanding, they’d lost one of Helga’s children that way, which was part of the reason her father had made the anti-Black Magick ward so fundamental.

“Oh, Ginny, we’re not angry or disappointed with you. We’re just glad you’re safe.” Ginny’s father reassured and then turned to Belinda. “Arthur Weasley, it’s a pleasure to meet you.”

“You too, I’d shake your hand but I’m not corporeal.” Belinda shrugged.

Harry snorted in amusement and then the door to the office opened again. A man stepped inside, followed by a house elf wearing… well, Belinda would hesitate to call what he was wearing clothes. He had long blonde hair and wore dark clothes that contrasted nicely with his pale skin. In one hand he held a cane with a snake head topping it and Belinda sighed internally at the power radiating from his left arm.

The magic felt exactly the same as the Horcrux’s but the spell matrix was different than what had surrounded the Horcrux. It felt more like a power sink than a tie to the living world, which was just wrong on so many levels. Who the hell willingly entered into a servile contract that tied into their magical core and then didn’t get it removed as soon as the person on the other end of their leash died?

“Well, I see that the youngest Weasley has been rescued.” Belinda recognized that tone, she didn’t like that tone.

“Yes, she was. And you are?” Belinda drawled, matching his noble affectations with her own.

Dealing with men like the blonde in front of her was a headache and a half but she’d done it before. Granted they’d never had a clearly abused house elf trailing around behind them as a clear indicator of their character but the arrogant, better than you attitude was exactly the same.

“Miss. Belinda, this is Lusius Malfoy, a member of the Board of Governors for the school.” Dumbledore began from behind her. “Mr. Malfoy, this is Belinda, the spirit of the Gryffindor sword.”

“Malfoy, that’s French isn’t it? Means bad faith.” Belinda stuck her nose in the air like she was some noble lady staring down an unlucky peasant. “Wonderful implication for a family with magic in their blood going so far back.”

Malfoy visibly bristled as she looked him up and down and pulled her lips into a position that showed how lacking she found him. If this was all it took to off balance someone from her father’s house she despared for the rest of the magical community.

“And who are you? You’re just a dead little girl attached to a shiny bit of metal.” Dear gods where was the subtlety, the nuance, the cunning.

Alright then, if he wanted to brute force this then two could play at that game. Belinda was not going to pander to either of these men’s power games. Their badly structured power games at that.

“My full name is Belinda Slytherin, daughter of Salazar Slytherin and Brigit Slytherin. I am the spirit of the Gryffindor sword and one of the Guardians of Hogwarts. I helped build this castle from the ground up and helped set in place at least a quarter of the wards if not more.” Belinda whirled on one heel and glared at Dumbledore through half closed eyes. “You are not fit to be Headmaster at Hogwarts. Your blatant neglect for your students’ safety and indolence, or at least what you have shown of those two traits, in the last ten minutes would be enough to have Helga rip off your arm and beat you with it if she were still alive. And that is not even taking into account your flagrantly inadequate hiring decisions.”

The room was growing darker and darker as Belinda’s anger grew. The adults pulled back from the rouling maelstrom of emotion but Harry drew closer and Ginny held her ground. The grip on her hilt was warm and didn’t slacken and Harry wasn’t pulling away from her when she was so clearly demonstration her darker nature, that said things about his home life that she really didn’t like.

“I strip you of your position, the bond with Fawkes that you clearly never built beyond what your role in this school granted, and the key to the wards which you so clearly neglect.” Belinda bared her teeth in a mockery of a smile as the old man crumpled inwards, some of the shine going out of his eyes and some of the silver in his beard turning bone white. “I am done playing games and I am done sleeping away the centuries. If Hogwarts has fallen this far under your direction then it clearly needs to return to what it once was. I invoke the Inheritance protocol.”

The magic in the air rose and rose and rose, finally snapping like a rubber band pulled too far. Around her the spells that had been sunk into the ritual room floor glowed to life before going out in an abrupt flash.

“What did you just do?” Dumbledore’s voice was weak and it croaked as he talked, he must have been tapping the wards and the leyline that ran them heavily if this was how he was reacting.

“Fixed. Your. Mess.” Belinda spat back at him.

Part 4

“You really shouldn’t have moved your office into one of the ritual magic classrooms, you know that. Anyone with the right words or the right spell could turn an open circle like that to their advantage. There was a reason we kept them keyed to only let certain staff members in.” Belinda reached down to ruffle Harry’s black locks.

Everyone’s eyes went wide as her touch actually connected. Harry blinked up at her for a minute and then wrapped both arms around her waist to cling. It felt strange, being semi corporeal after so long as being just a sword was always a bit strange but she was taking it in stride.

“The Headmaster’s office has always been here!” One of the newer - for a given value of newer - portraits barked.

“No, it hasn’t.” Belinda shot him a look of utter disdain. “It was originally down by the Dining Hall, where any student could come to ask questions if needed. Granted it wasn’t the Headmaster’s office back then but the concept is the same.”

“What?” Malfoy sounded vaguely shell shocked.

Belinda glanced at him over her shoulder to see that all of the color had drained out of his face, leaving him a chalky white color. She didn’t smirk when she caught sight of his arm, the cloud of magic that had surrounded it was gone, forcibly ejected from his aura when the wards reset. She’d been a bit worried that he’d be ejected with it but he didn’t appear to be that far gone yet.

“Since I helped make them I can remake them, the fact that I’m just a magical presence trapped in a sword actually helps with that, I didn’t even have to bleed for them this time.” Belinda ran her fingers through the hair on the back of Harry’s head as he started shaking ever so slightly.

It looked like the emotional melt down portion of the evening had started, at least Ginny looked like she was still numbed over. That was probably a bit of a bad sign but Belinda could only really deal with one crying child at a time without throwing magic at the problem, a fact that Helena had found hysterical.

“What did you do?” Dumbledore croaked.

“I reinstated the original governing structure of Hogwarts, four seats for four founders with the teachers weighing in on any matter that can not be decided amongst them. As such, the four who exemplify the traits of the founders most will be chosen from the populous of the school. They’ll be here in a few minutes.”

The bark of a badger reverberated throughout the room.

“Hufflepuff has already been chosen, that was fast.” Belinda turned towards the door, Harry shuffling along beside her, so he didn’t have to let go.

She was pretty sure Harry was crying but you wouldn't be able to tell by looking at him. She was going to have to do something about his home life, she’d never managed to cry in complete silence even when she was trying. She didn’t know anyone who could besides the too skinny twins who’d been staying at the castle full time.

“Is there any particular order or is it random?” Ginny asked.

“Random, as soon as each aspect of the wards finds someone to anchor too then they do.” Belinda explained.

“And if it’s a student?” The stern faced woman asked.

“Anyone under age gets passed over the first go around but if the magic can’t find anyone qualified among the adults, it starts going down in age until it hits the oldest person who qualifies.” Belinda waved off the concern.

They waited and waited until three minutes later when the roar of a lion and the hissing of a viper joined the badger’s call. It took even longer for the final triumphant call of an eagle to ring out.

“That, was not reassuring.” Belinda mused as the door to the office banged open and three teens tumbled into the room. “And that would be why? How old are you two?”

Two of them were identical, magical twins, great, that was always a trip and looked vaguely like Ginny and Ron so they were probably related. Above each of their heads was half of a ring made of crackling silver magic, Slytherin’s chosen because of course the wards would pick twins for her father’s house.

The girl was tall with chocolatey skin and hair as black as a raven’s wing. The hair was swept back and pinned up like she hadn’t wanted to bother with it that morning. She wasn’t wearing an over robe and her shoes were missing for some reason but was in most of her uniform. A flaming crown of gold floated above her head marking her as Gryffindor’s chosen.

The twins were not of age, they weren’t even close to being of age. If the two of them were older than fifteen Belinda would eat her own pommel. She didn’t even have the energy to be any more angry right then and that was a shame because more yelling might actually let her feel better about this situation. How were all the other students in her father’s house so screwed up that none of those above fifteen were able to retain their house values?

Wait.

How young was Rowena’s chosen?

Belinda felt her magic run as cold as ice. The twins were young, scarilly young, so young that Belinda almost wanted to protest the claiming even though she knew it wouldn’t do any good. But, the eagle had rung out last.

‘Belinda, you are a woman of Slytherin house and you will not disgrace your father’s name by hexing every adult in this for being an imbecile.’ Belinda told herself.

Mrs. Weasley gasped in shock as her twins and the black haired girl skidded to a stop in front of Belinda and Harry. “Fred! George! What are you two doing here?”

“Hey, Mum.” They waved awkwardly at her before grinning at Belinda.

Their smiles were sharp, like a pair of fox kits just learning to hunt. All playful energy with only a hint of the predators they would become peeking through. They were also wearing red and gold ties, the same color as the girl’s.

Belinda realized with dawning horror that a Slytherin student hadn’t been chosen for the Slytherin seat. The head of her father’s house was to get a piece of her mind when she got around to talking to them. She liked Gryffindors and those of Gryffindor house, she’d been betrothed to Leonhart after all and had loved him enough to stay with him after she died but this was just a touch insulting.

The door opened again and a woman strode in, she was plump and looked like she had a pleasant nature. Her robes were grass stained and muddy around the hem. She held a pair of gardening gloves in one hand and there was a broad brimmed hat sitting atop her messy curls. A black circlet floated above her head, shining like the volcanic stones that Rowena had brought back from her travels one summer.

“Madame Sprout.” The stern faced woman sounded a bit relieved.

“It appears that the mother of my house has chosen me to stand for her in this matter.” Madame Sprout sounded cheerful up until she caught sight of the three students standing in front of belinda, then her face darkened in fury.

Belinda had to restrain herself to a self satisfied smile. At last an adult who actually understood the concept of letting children be children rather than being completely unconcerned when they came into your school with a Horcrux and decided to go spelunking only to encounter a basilisk. Belinda may have only been sixteen when she died but sixteen had been a different perspective back in the ten hundreds and her father still hadn’t treated her with the flagrant lack of supervision that these children were being subjected to.

There was someone behind her though, someone much shorter than she was and Belinda felt dred beginning to pool in the pit of her stomach. There was no way that the person standing behind Madame Sprout was in their upper years.

The boy stepped around the teacher carefully, trying not to bump into her and looking beyond nervous. He was small and blonde with eyes bluer than the clearest of skies. He looked vaguely like Malfoy but aged down considerably and with features that were a tad softer around the edges. There was a ring of bronze magic floating around his head like wisps of crystalized cloud and he couldn’t have been any older than Harry.

Belinda brought both hands up to her face and resisted the urge to scream into them. After a moment she let her hands fall and opened her mouth to speak.

“Draco!” Malfoy barked in disbelief.

The younger Malfoy flinched in on himself at that, trying to pull further back in on himself without actually looking like he was doing it. Malfoy strode forward in two fast steps and was abruptly gone.

“Huh, guess it just took the right motivation.” Belinda mused.

Something would have to be done about Draco’s home life as well then, if the wards had that kind of reaction to his father moving towards him. What kind of threat it had clocked him as was a mystery but Belinda wasn’t taking any chances that he was actually a decent person.

*****

Getting the Council of Hogwarts sorted out had been a cluster fuck of epic preportions, especially with the fact that half of them were underage but once they’d figured out who would be the proxies it was just a matter of getting them there. The twins had picked their brother Bill as their proxy and Draco had picked a seventh year by the name of Magnus White.

Professor Sprout had become the de facto head of the council once they got the proxies into the room, all of them had had her as a Herbology teacher and they all knew she knew what she was doing. It would have amused Helga that her chosen had taken over, Godric and Rowena had normally been the ones steering the council.

There had been an interesting interlude in those discussions when the Minister of Magic had come barging into the office and Dumbledore had tried to lie his way around Belinda’s existence and the Horcrux issue. Belinda had shut that down immediately by handing the dairy over to Amelia Bones, a lovely woman who was in charge of something important involving the law and turned to Harry.

“Remember, Harry, lying is tacky and should only be used if you know for sure you won’t get caught. Half truths and misdirections are your best friends.” She’d enjoyed the red color the old goat’s face had gone.

On another note, Godric’s chosen refused to wear shoes and since no one could really make Banhi wear them now that she was on the council it didn’t really matter.

Sorting out the issues between Draco and Harry had been a bit more complicated but getting the two to sit down and actually talk about the issue rather than just letting them scream insults had gone a long way towards that goal. As it turned out, Draco had been under the impression that Harry had been raised with the ‘courtly manners’ that ‘purebloods’ were apparently force fed from birth while Harry had just thought Draco was being a git. The fact that Draco hadn’t quite learned the meaning of tact yet, a skill his father clearly didn’t have, had hindered the situation greatly.

Their first meeting had consisted of blatant - to Belinda at least - attempts to impress what he saw as a shy halfblood he’d never met and made the worst comments possible for it to actually work. The second, on the train, had resulted in a brief altercation involving Ron’s pet rat, which had made Belinda sigh in exasperation and resist the urge to shake them like naughty puppies.

They were sitting cross legged on the floor of the ritual room or at least the two boys were, Belinda was floating a few inches above the floor while she tried to explain where the flaws in both their logic lay. If Draco was anything like Rowena then that was going to be a task and a half but he was young enough that there was still hope to break him of his stubbornness if it was a trait.

“So Harry tells you no when you ask for his hand in friendship.” Belinda repeated.

Draco sniffed and stuck his tiny nose in the air, Belinda resisted the urge to coo. “He didn’t just refuse it, he threw my words back in my face and said that Weasley was better than me.”

Harry was starting to realize something, Belinda could see it, she just hoped it was the right thing. If they could get this sorted out they’d be golden and she could keep the both of them at Hogwarts with her over the summer. Dumbledore had tried to protest but Belinda had reminded him that he wasn’t actually in charge of the school anymore and since she was a Guardian of one of the houses she outranked him anyway.

“You.” Harry paused, blinking rapidly. “That actually hurt. I just thought you were insulted or, or indignant about it.”

And there was the breakthrough she’d been waiting for.

Draco blushed, face almost going the shade of red as the tie that Harry was wearing around his neck. That was an interesting reaction, Belinda remembered having a similar one to Leonhart stumbling head first into the realization that smacking a snake out of her hand was a bad idea. Granted the snake had been a viper but still, he should have known better.

Draco tried to look haughty but his blush isn't helping matters. “No, I wasn’t.”

“Yes, you were.” Belinda interrupted before it could turn into a “was not, was too” argument. “And Harry was angry because you’d just insulted his first friend. Now can you two hug and make up, it’s time to go eat.”

They hugged, it was awkward and adorable and Belinda had a moment of unadulterated glee as she watched another bolt of realization spark to life in Harry’s face. It looked like the Gryffindor curse was still firmly in place, watching this love story unfold was going to be the most amusing thing she’d experienced in centuries.


End file.
